On Tuesday evening, UConn looked to rebound from a frustrating loss against #18 Louisville in a scrimmage against the Windsor Locks Over-50 All-Star Team.
Check that. We’re being told it was Temple. Their opponent was Temple. You can understand the confusion, as Temple is astonishingly bad. The owls dropped to 5-12 on the season and 0-6 in the AAC.
UConn (15-4, 3-3) alternated between pummeling Temple and daydreaming about playing a real opponent. With guard Ryan Boatright back in Illinois attending the memorial service of his cousin, who was tragically murdered last week, the remaining starters picked up the slack.
Shabazz Napier was delightfully effective, going 9-14 from the floor, 5-8 from three-point range, and 4-4 from the free throw line. He finished with 27 points, seven rebounds and six assists against only two turnovers.
Junior DeAndre Daniels recovered from a disappointing outing against Louisville to record career-highs in both points (31) and rebounds (12). Daniels has struggled to find consistency this season, but is following a similar path as last year. For much of the 2012-2013 season, Daniels alternated great performances with no shows (11ppg over the first 19 games, 12.8ppg this season’s first 19 games). Daniels turned it the last four games last season. The sooner the better for this year’s Huskies.
No UConn player truly performed poorly on Tuesday evening. With Boatright out, both Niels Giffey and Lasan Kromah got the start. Neither overwhelmed — and Kromah was uncharacteristically sloppy with four turnovers — but both played well enough to play 30+ minutes.
It was a nice, easy win for UConn in a quarter-full XL Center. After Saturday’s stressful debacle, the Huskies no doubt enjoyed the vacation atmosphere of Tuesday’s 90-66 victory over Temple.
Notes:
- The tour-de-force of Leon Tolksdorf, Tor Watts and Pat Lenehan all saw action tonight with Tolksdorf (rebound) and Watts (steal) sneaking their way into the box score. Always fun.
- Omar Calhoun played 14 minutes and scored five points on 2-5 shooting. Against such a poor opponent, you’d hope Calhoun would launch enough shots to shoot his way out of his slump.
- UConn out-rebounded Temple 45-25. Again, Temple is real bad.
- The game was on CBS Sports Network — a channel many in Connecticut apparently do not get, and others are not offered in High Definition. It seems odd that citizens would have such a hard time viewing their state’s public university on television, but such is the fun of the AAC!
Up Next:
On Saturday night (Jan. 25th), UConn will travel to the toxic wasteland of Rutgers to take on whatever collection of sad Rutgers calls a basketball team these days. The game tips at 7pm on ESPNU.
Am I making this up, or did the University used to let students without tickets pack in games at Gampel during snow storms, knowing the season ticket holders wouldn’t show? If I did dream that or not, it sure makes a good case for more games on campus. Also, do they offer refunds (are they still $5??) for the student ticket since they didn’t offer transportation?
There was at least one game in the past (against Pitt I believe) where UConn basically opened the doors to Gampel and the place was first come, first served. At XL last night the best the did was to tell everyone in the arena that they were free to move up and fill the empty, better seats.
The did not refund the student tickets, despite canceling the buses meant to bring the kids from Storrs to Hartford.